


And I Will Be Like a God to Them

by Pandir



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Electro is a god AU, Gen, M/M, The attempt to write an Electro/Harry flavored myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 03:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2176950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandir/pseuds/Pandir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You are a god, will you listen to my prayers?”</p><p>- </p><p>The god of lightning had no mercy to offer, but even a vengeful god needs company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Will Be Like a God to Them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KrokoRobin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrokoRobin/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday, mon Peluche! :D

They say the god of lightning had once been a man. A very common man, overlooked by everyone, no one special - even though he knew he was so much more than what people saw in him. So he lived entirely for his work, which he had dedicated to thunderstorms, for he admired the power of the thunderbolts and the beauty of the flash. People laughed at him and his odd fascination when he told them about it, therefore he kept to himself and rarely walked among them. Still he worked tirelessly, so that one day they all would see him and recognize him for who he truly was - one day, when he'd be able to tame lightning and thunder and protect them all.

Yet when he told that he could catch lightning with iron and bend it to his will, they called him mad and laughed, and when he invited them to witness it with their own eyes, no one would listen to him.

It was then that his loneliness and disappointment turned into anger and he asked himself: _why would I protect those who do not even see me, who don't even recognize me and what I have to give to them?_ and his wrath grew so strong that he decided to show them all what he could do.

He would be seen. He would be heard. And he would make them pay.

One stormy night, he invited the lightning to his home again, yet this time, he let it flow freely and untamed. His hands held tightly on to his iron contraption as it struck, for he wanted its beauty and, more than anything, he craved its power. And lightning engulfed him. His house burst in flames and the fire devoured half of the city, and in the scorched stones, no traces of him could be found.

The power ripped through him, breaking the constraints of his mortal shell. As he fell to pieces, he embraced this destruction that enlightened the fibres of his being, and it became part of him. He was one now with the thunderstorm and lightning was flowing through his veins.

And wherever he went, he was feared, for he brought death and devastation.

Yet there was still something he craved more than fear. And so a mortal tricked the vengeful god. With the promise of worship and reverence, he lured him into a temple that they had build for him. Too late did the god see that it was built not to praise him, but to bind him. Trapped, weakened and betrayed, all he had left was his endless rage and bitterness, and the people saw storm clouds gathering above the temple and trembled in fear.

They sent sacrifices to the temple to appease the lightning god’s wrath and assure their own houses and families would be spared.

 

Lightning took them all, one by one, but no sacrifice could ever lessen his anger.

***

There was something odd about this one.

He’d been yelling and fighting when they had led him inside, yet as soon as the temple was sealed shut again, he’d fallen silent.

The accursed god was only offered the unwanted, criminals and prisoners to be punished with death. But this sacrifice was no slave, no criminal, no beggar - his hair was well-cut and his skin clean and unharmed, his posture upright. He was also young, unusually young. There was something haughty, something hurt in his defiance, as he kept pacing the walls of his prison, until the darkness of the night was seeping into the inner sanctum of the temple.

Exhausted, he sank down between the offerings they had brought in with him, wine and gold and fine cloth, and remained sitting there, a small figure wrapped in a white tunic, staring up to the sky above him as he shivered in the cold night air.

Lightning did not strike this night, for the god was still observing.

*

In the early morning hours, after the young man had already drunken his share of the red wine and was dozing, holding one of the jars close to his chest, he was alerted by a sudden presence, like the static of an oncoming storm, and a prickling in the air about him. The jar smashed on the floor as he jumped to his feet and looked about with wide eyes.

“Are you here?”, he asked in a hushed whisper, eyes darting through the room.

When there was no answer, he took a step forward, carefully avoiding the shards of clay as his bare feet tread on stones covered with spilled wine.

“God of Lightning, can you hear me?”, he said, louder, his voice wavering a little as he kept looking for a sign. “If you can, I beg you, please, spare me!”

He stumbled as he turned around, yet when there was no one answering, he got more and more desperate. “ I shouldn't even be here!", he declared, "Look at me.” He spread his arms, and they were all skin and bones, as he presented himself as he was, thin as a wisp and sickly pale. "I’m not even a worthy sacrifice." His pleading tone had a bitter note to it, and there was something familiar about it that caught the god’s attention. “I am doomed already. They just send me here to get rid of me.”

The god knew he was telling the truth. He was already dying, slowly, fading away as his sickness that was eating him alive.

The boy froze to the spot when before his eyes, the figure of a man manifested itself out of thin air. It was as if lightning had taken on human form, its glow blinding and alluring in the dark and there was a buzzing and crackling of immense powers, barely constrained and waiting to be unleashed. Mesmerized by the apparition, the young man couldn't find the words to speak. There was awe shining in his eyes and a smile spread across his face, for he thought the god had shown himself to him to spare him. Now that he had laid eyes on him, he was entranced, thrilled by the pure energy that filled the room, prickled on his skin and hummed in his ears. And he knew, he felt, that the god could do what no one had accomplished - free him of his misery.

“I knew you were here”, he exclaimed. “And I know you can help me.”

The god’s voice was a crackling sound, low, but resonating within the temple’s pillars.

“Lightning will grant you a quick death, not a long creeping decay.”

There was a look of terror on the boy’s face when he saw that the god had not come to be merciful, and he shook his head. “No, hear me out! Please. You can take my life”, he swallowed hard at these words, struggling to get them out, “but not now.”

He wouldn't go like this, silently, to be forgotten.

Apparently encouraged by the silence of the god before him, the boy took a deep breath and declared, “First, I want you to make them pay for what they did to me. They wanted me to disappear – I want them burnt to dust.”

He looked up to the god before him, imploring, yet determined in his anger. “Will you do this for me?”, he was both pleading and urging, “You are a god, will you listen to my prayers?”

He couldn’t possibly be aware that this was the first time the god of lightning had ever been prayed to, and it was the raw need, the hurt in his plea for vengeance, that stirred at a part of him that used to be human once. _Betrayed, like him. An outcast, like him._ The words almost rang true - but the god did not believe in the sincerity of words anymore. 

“I am confined to this temple”, he said simply.

The boy was getting desperate now. “There must be _something_ you can do! After all, we are both trapped here!” And as if he was hit by a sudden awareness of the hopelessness of his situation, he added, now strangely sober but with emphasis, “I’d do _anything_ to get you out of here.”

The god hesitated. This was nothing he’d ever dared to hope for, yet he had he not learned his lesson to never again put his faith in a human?

“You would have to offer yourself to me.”

The boy swallowed at the rather ominous answer, now hesitating. “So, either way you are going to take my life?”

There was no answer. After a moment of contemplation, the boy licked his lips, his eyes shining in the god’s glowing light. He couldn't deny there was beauty in this unrelenting source of power, neither dead or alive, but eternal.

 “Before I die”, he began, a bit uncertain, “Can I- can I at least touch you? I want to know-” He faltered, his eyes sore from staring into the brightness, but he did neither dare not want to take his eyes off him. He was not ready to die, but maybe if he got a taste of it, of this surging burning radiance that was so different from decay--

 The god knew no mortal could ever touch him. Yet there was something in the young man’s gaze ever since he’d first laid eyes on him that stayed his wrath and cut through his bitterness and captured him against better knowledge.

 “Not unless there is lightning running through your veins.”

 It was both promise and threat.

And when the god vanished, the boy knew the decision would be up to him.

Lightning did not strike this day, for the god was still contemplating, too intrigued to kill yet reluctant to trust.

*

The sun was setting for the third time when the boy spoke up again.

  
“Are you still there?” It was but a hoarse whisper from dry broken lips, yet he hoped it would be heard. There was the familiar presence prickling on his skin again that made the thin hairs of his neck stand up.

“I know we are alike. I know you understand what it feels like", his voice was breaking and he took a few shaky breaths to keep himself together. "I’ve got nothing left." As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew they were true. This was all he had, this sick shell was all he was clinging to, and he hated how pathetic he was. 

 When he looked up, the sparking figure was hovering above the ground before him, in the middle of the temple, and as the boy blinked away his tears, his gaze was again both wonder and hunger. And the god understood.

He loathed his powerlessness, so he craved. He could not bear his loneliness, so he ached.

The god of lightning had no mercy to offer, but even a vengeful god needs company.

“I don’t want to die”, the boy said softly as he got to his feet, his eyes alight.

 As he approached the god, every step was bringing him closer to death, but the prickling on his skin and the singing in his bones felt like salvation, like a promise he could almost taste on his tongue. “I want to be with you.” His fingers stretched towards him, the young man reached out, yet stopped as he got close enough to feel the stinging jolts in his palm.

 “What will it be like”, he asked, “when I surrender to you?”

 Yet he didn't wait for an answer, suddenly aware that he already knew. Instead, he took another step and leaned forward, his head inclined, almost as if to kiss.

 And then all around him was white light and searing pain, he was surrounded by it, drowning in it, and his whole body was singing as he breathed lightning, his mouth a voiceless scream. Shaking, he came apart at the seams as his soul was ripped from his dying mortal shell.

_There will be lightning running through your veins._

 

The night was lit by the flash of a lightning bolt that struck the temple, the stone walls burst and crumbled, the floor cracked, and right in the centre of the former inner chamber, it was scorched and pitch black.

*

It is said that with an oncoming thunderstorm, a strange boy would wander the earth beneath the darkening clouds, his pale white skin covered with scars that branched out like lightning against a black sky.

He would walk alone, his feet barely touching the ground, unharmed by the wrath of the elements about him. Yet he was an ill omen, for the storm followed his steps and wherever he went, lightning would strike.


End file.
